Originally Posted by
hindsight2020
Industry that cannot be expected stave off economic resets for any longer than measly 10 years at best? That doesn't sound like a particularly compatible nature with the semantic definition of a career. That sounds like a gig to me. Just being rhetorical here for the sake of introspection and further discussion, not admonishing people's choices in life.
It's very gig-like until you get a number at a big stable major. Once you're there, there's a still a gig aspect until you get some seniority, but even if you get a few years off, you'll still get called back. Once you get reasonable seniority (75% ?), the gig aspect fades and your biggest career risk is medical (mitigated by a good disability program). Yes an airline could go bust but so could any other employer and the big ones are probably too big to fail (although we might press to test on that premise over the next year).